Earth Day: A legacy of the University of Michigan
So today is the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, an event that was essentially kick-started by an "Environmental Teach-In" at the University of Michigan in March of 1970. There's a lot of interesting stuff on the history of it here:
https://earthday.umich.edu/about/.
Like most of you, I always knew the first Earth Day largely started at U of M. But I didn't realize what a major event the teach-in was. There were over 100 events at the university and around Ann Arbor and it attracted powerful politicians and popular celebrities.
I think it has left an incredible legacy as well. Earth Day has raised our level of awareness of the environment and spurred international efforts to save the planet.
I've seen Earth Day posts here before but I didn't see any recently so I thought I'd post some good U of M (and non-Covid-related) news. Enjoy Earth Day and Go Blue!
Thanks for posting this. I actually remember the first Earth Day when I was in elementary school in suburban Detroit. The teachers set aside the day for students to help clean up the creek and surrounding areas inside the school grounds. It was one of the only days where we were allowed to wear jeans and t-shirts to school! Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I've been a big believer in environmental conservation ever since.
Probably didn't go to the same school, but I have the exact same memory. Great time from my childhood.
Additionally, i think the future of Earth Day should go further. I would love to see it as an official federal holiday but I doubt that would ever happen. I would also love to see it as a "car-free" day (or weekend) in which we encourage people to stay home (and even power down at home) to reduce carbon emissions. With the spread of covid we've seen what even temporary reductions can do to air pollution. Maybe I'm crazy? I am.
With the spread of covid we've seen what even temporary reductions can do to air pollution.
I agree.
I'd like to see a lot of what we've learned/experienced become commonplace.
By way of comparison, after 9-11 this country learned how to come together and be better to one another... well, for a while at least.
With COVID, I have no such expectations that will happen. People continue on doubling down ton being shitty one another.
I’d rather see a “everybody get out of the house and leave your cell phones behind” day.
sounds like an idea out of Hollywood. Not drive for a day and take a private jet to your second home the next day. Must be nice in that bubble
I thought John Denver started Earth Day.
I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver is full of shit, man.
Thanks for the reminder. While it is still right to be very concerned about the environment and world ecology in general, there has been a great deal of progress since that time in this country including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and provisions for protecting endangered species. The Detroit River, for example, at that time was basically considered "dead." Now it is one of the greatest walleye fisheries in the world.
Still there is much to terrified of, but what the COVID pandemic has really driven home for me is overpopulation, especially in certain (ahem) countries. Before all of this even happened I was mystified at just how China can even feed 1.4 billion people each day. Or how they can safely process out all of the, uh, waste. I had personally never even heard of the city of Wuhan before this, so it was jaw-dropping to learn that it is a city of 11 million people and is only the tenth largest city in China.
Overall birth rates are mostly leveling off or dropping in much of the world, and I've read that human population is supposed to peak sometime in the middle of this century, but the human race has some serious technological hurdles to clear before we have a sustainably clean, healthy planet to inhabit long-term.
How are you/we/anyone defining over-population?
What is sustainable?
It may be Earth day but everyone still loves Uranus.
let's get to the important items, when will there be biodegradeable pom-poms. The 50 ppl allowed in the Big House will need them BIGLY!
Continuing the tradition from the original Teach-Ins, the University has been developing Teach-Outs to explore these (and other) topics https://online.umich.edu/teach-outs/earth-day-at-50-teach-out/
I really dig this- I just signed up. Thanks for sharing!
I read an interesting perspective in a book where the author claimed that environmental activism and environmental science often diverge but that the passion of activists and the direction/guidance of science are both critical.
A bit more Earth Day history
http://www.nelsonearthday.net/earth-day/
The first Earth Day, observed across the country on April 22, 1970, crystallized a growing public concern about ecological crises. Earth Day was the product of local grassroots action to increase environmental awareness but it also focused the nation's political agenda on urgent environmental issues.
It was Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson who in September 1969 proposed a national teach-in on the environment to send a message to Washington that public opinion was solidly behind a bold political agenda on environmental problems.
Inspired by the campus activism of the late 1960s, he employed a team of experienced students to help him respond to the immediate and overwhelming public excitement for a national day on the environment. However, Nelson insisted the first Earth Day's activities be created not by organizers in Washington, but by individuals and groups in their own communities. As a result of this empowering vision, 1 in 10 Americans participated in the first Earth Day, drawing extensive attention from the media and jump-starting an era of bold environmental legislation.
Did everyone get their slice of cake? Vlad would want everyone to have an equal share of his cake.
https://www.ihatethemedia.com/earth-day-predictions-of-1970-the-reason-you-should-not-believe-earth-day-predictions-of-2009
Read that and see how full of shit "the experts" are and have been
A few examples...
“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist
“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
I would probably be more on board for Earth Day if many of its proponents...
1.) Didn't use ED as an excuse to damage the free market and
2.) Didn't believe the solution to all things environmental involves surrendering personal individual freedoms to government.
People who can be environmental while not expanding bureaucracy or passing laws, that I can get behind.